


the awful edges

by starsaregoingout (abovetheruins)



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Biting, Blood and Gore, Choking, Disturbing Themes, Don't Play With Your Food, F/M, Fear, Human/Monster Romance, Other, Reader-Insert, Scary Clowns, Teeth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-07 03:03:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12224415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abovetheruins/pseuds/starsaregoingout
Summary: Your legs are too heavy, pinned down to the bed. You try to kick them free of the sheets, but something long and thin curves over your shins and keeps you still.You freeze.Your mind kickstarts into overdrive, all traces of sluggishness and sleep obliterated in a rush of cold understanding and naked fear.Someone isin your room.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i'm actually terrified of clowns, what is this, what am i doing with my life.
> 
> title comes from ludo's [the horror of our love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kQ-0bBkMIY). of course.
> 
> if you know me in real life, enjoy the free blackmail material.

You wake with a gasp to the darkness of your living room, your heart pounding uncomfortably in your chest. Already your dream is fading, leaving only vague recollections of something tall and dark chasing after you, but the sensation of rancid breath on the back of your neck remains, sending chills down the length of your arms and legs. It doesn't help that the movie you'd started hours ago had long since finished and the television screen was black and silent, leaving you in perpetual darkness. 

You're stuck there on the couch for a long moment, uncomfortably aware of how loud your own breaths are and the depth of the darkness beyond your living room windows. You long to reach out to the side table and flick on a lamp, but hesitate for reasons you can't name. Your pulse throbs in your ears.

You blame your disquiet on your dream and force yourself up from the couch, grabbing for your phone and stumbling down the hall without a backward glance. You hope the familiarity of your bedroom will calm your nerves, but even as you flip on the light and shut the door - locking it for good measure - you can't shake the peculiar itch on the back of your neck. You feel like someone is watching you.

You're used to feeling paranoid and uneasy after a bad dream - _That's all this is_ , you tell yourself - so you take your time getting ready for bed and gathering your clothes for the next morning, hoping you can calm yourself down enough to sleep.

Yet as you turn off the light and slide into bed, pulling the thick comforter up to your neck, you can't help but cast uncertain glances to the corners of your room and to your closed closet door. You know you're being silly, acting like a kid worried about monsters under the bed, but you can't shake the peculiar sensation that you're being followed. That there are eyes on you. The air feels too heavy, almost oppressive, and your body refuses to relax beneath the sheets. You won't be able to sleep like this.

In a burst of movement, you toss your legs over the side of the bed and march over to your closet, yanking the door open and grabbing for the hanging chain to switch on the light bulb. Pale yellow light floods the small space, and you sigh. It's empty. Of course.

You kill the light and get back in bed, shaking your head at yourself as you roll over onto your side. Now that your paranoia has been eased a bit, it's easier to close your eyes and settle into the mattress. You can't even remember what it was about your dream that had unnerved you so badly.

You sleep.

You wake for a second time to the bedsheets twisted about your legs, the fading sound of laughter and music in your ears. You'd dreamed you were at a fair, and the scent of popcorn and cotton candy lingers in your nostrils, sweet and cloying. 

You scrunch your nose, but the scent doesn't fade; instead it shifts, becomes sharper. Almost sickly, like rotten fruit. You blink open your eyes, your sleepy gaze falling on the alarm clock by your bed and it's glowing green numbers. You've woken in the middle of the night, as you sometimes do, though never because a strange smell has pulled you from your dreams - a smell that's growing stronger. It's sickly sweetness is underscored by a hint of musk, and your nose itches with an oncoming sneeze. Confused, you move to sit up.

Only to realize that you can't.

Your legs are too heavy, pinned down to the bed. You try to kick them free of the sheets, but something long and thin curves over your shins and keeps you still.

You freeze.

Your mind kickstarts into overdrive, all traces of sluggishness and sleep obliterated in a rush of cold understanding and naked fear.

Someone is _in your room_. 

Your pulse gallops. You slowly turn your head, your hair rasping on the pillow, breath locked tightly behind your teeth. You can't see anything past the faint circle of light generated by your alarm clock, the rest of the room cloaked in darkness, but you can _feel_ the weight on your shins - fingers, they're fingers - digging into your skin through the bed covers. 

You're afraid to open your mouth, afraid to do anything but stare into the murky darkness of your bedroom, a cold sweat building on your brow as your eyes begin to adjust to the lack of light. 

There's a hulking form standing at the foot of your bed, leaning over you. You can't make out any features, only a wild shock of hair and long limbs. You can't hear them - he? _It_? - breathing over the sound of your own heartbeat, can't see them moving in the dark, can't see _anything_ , but you can _feel_ , and the grip around your shins is vice-tight.

Your body jerks as a long inhale breaches the silence, followed by the low rasp of a voice, the words mumbled and indistinguishable. Another inhale echoes in the space between you, and another, until you realize... They're sniffing the air. For what, you don't know. You can't smell anything but that strange musty scent that had permeated your room upon waking, a mix of sugar and rot and old dust that makes your head ache. 

"One more for the road?" you hear, your entire body going stiff at the sing-song quality of the voice. It's masculine enough, but pitched high with glee, though the tone slides effortlessly into something deeper, darker, as it continues, "Yes, a nice little midnight _snack_." The audible click of teeth following the bizarre statement sends ice water flooding through your veins, every muscle in your body tensing as if on instinct.

Your fingers twitch - whether in preparation for an attack or defense, you never find out. Within one stuttered heartbeat and the next the figure at the foot of your bed lunges, crawling over you with a rustle of cloth and the faint, strange jingle of bells. They're on top of you before you can even think to move, their weight bearing down on you and that scent - cloying and so potent it makes your eyes water - covering you like a shroud.

In seconds their face is looming over yours, and a scream locks in your throat as you finally catch a glimpse of your attacker. The pale light from your alarm clock washes over their - his? - face, caked in cracked, white paint and marred with a curving, red grin. Your mind balks as it catalogues the details - the red nose, the shock of wild orange hair, the ring of ruffles at his collar. A clown.

Fear crashes over you in a sickening wave. Your body flushes hot and then cold so quickly it leaves you dizzy. You can't speak, can't move. 

The clown's red lips part in a wide smile, revealing prominent front teeth and gums wet with saliva. Gloved hands reach up to curve around your face, and a whine builds in your throat as the clown lowers his own, pressing the ball of his nose to the base of your throat and inhaling deeply. 

" _There_." You flinch away at the voice, guttural and giddy against your pounding pulse point, but you don't get far. The clown's grip around your cheeks tighten, fingertips digging into your jaw and the soft space behind your ears, and you freeze. Your head aches from the pressure, and you have a brief, terrifying vision of your skull caving in beneath the strength of the clown's bruising grip. 

"Stay still," he hisses, the childish giddiness leeched from his voice. Cold blue eyes peer down at you; you watch as one pupil meanders lazily off-center. "No running away. No, no." Those painted lips broaden in a wide grin as the clown lifts your head off your pillow; drool bubbles on the ridges of his teeth. "Pennywise has you now." 

Saliva drips onto your face, your vision swallowed by the clown's - by Pennywise's pale face, the stark red curves along his cheeks blurring as tears flood your eyes. Your mouth moves soundlessly, all thought, all emotion stripped from you, save one.

" _Fear_ ," Pennywise sighs, euphoric in a way that twists your stomach. His dark gaze tracks each minute tick of your face - your wide, wet eyes, the color quickly draining from your cheeks, your parted lips. At the sight of the latter, he bares his teeth in a malicious smile. "Are you going to scream?" he asks, tilting his head like a curious animal. Tears fall down the curves of your cheeks in lieu of a reply, your mouth frozen. "You can scream," Pennywise continues, giggling as he shifts on top of you, knees snug on either side of your hips. Between his bulk and the sickly sweet scent he exudes, you're suffocating. 

Your helpless silence goads him on. Pennywise leans down, breaching the scant distance between you until his nose touches yours, blue eyes melting into sulfuric yellow. His voice drops to a feral whisper. "I can _make_ you scream." 

You watch in horror as he opens his mouth, his eyes rolling into the back of his head as his jaws split open, spreading wide, wider, peeling back to reveal a maw of sharp, pointed teeth. Dozens upon dozens of them, a mouthful of razors undulating bare inches from your face, sticky wet saliva pooling in every crevice and falling in rivulets down the curves of your cheeks. The scent of iron clings to his breath. Blood and heat.

Yet still you don't scream. You don't wail. You don't sob. You can't. You can feel them, a cacophony of terror trapped within the cage of your throat, hysteria tripping on the tip of your tongue, but it's like his presence has sucked all the air out of you, locked your voice away and left you unable to do anything but shiver in helpless terror. All you can do is watch, your gaze arrested by the horde of teeth in his cavernous mouth, spit slick and needle sharp, and the seemingly endless tunnel of his gullet. In the darkness of your bedroom, the back of his throat emits a misty, golden glow.

You don't know what it is or how it's even there, nestled in the back of the clown's throat, but your mind rebels at the strange light, adrenaline flooding your system in a dizzying rush and somehow, finally, loosening the shackles on your voice.

" _Nnngh!_ "

It's only a short, agonized hum of fear, an animal bleat of panic, but Pennywise pauses at the sound, tilting his head as if to hear you better. 

But you emit no sound save the rush of your breath and the rabbit-fast beat of your heart. Your throat has closed once more, a lump of panic and sheer animal terror preventing you from uttering a single word. 

A manic, muffled giggle erupts from the clown's gaping mouth. Your vision wavers, obstructed by tears, but the retraction of those massive jaws is clear enough to your eyes. Your body relaxes a fraction as the glow at the back of his throat vanishes, followed by the maw of teeth, until you're once again faced with the white and red painted visage, and Pennywise's lips curled in smug amusement.

"What was that?" he asks, releasing your cheek to cup a hand around his ear. "Did you say something?"

His other hand, still curled around your jaw, jerks your head up and down in a facsimile of a nod, jarring more tears from your eyes and making your teeth click together painfully.

"Yes?" he continues, wiggling his fingers around the shell of his ear. "Go on then. Don't be shy." He ducks his head down until his ear hovers above your mouth. 

Your lips tremble violently - your whole body trembles violently - but you open your mouth, you reach for something, anything, but all that manages to climb from the prison of your throat is a strangled, stuttered, "P-p-please."

Pennywise's head jerks around to face you, his grip on your jaw tightening until pain lances through your skull. "Boring," he growls, and panic squeezes your guts in a vice. Surely it's now, you think, your chest aching with the force of your rushed breaths, surely it's now that he'll kill you.

You brace for it, for the punch of those brutal teeth through your throat or for those huge, bruising hands to crack your head in two, but instead you're faced with a wide, red smile and bright, dancing eyes.

That giddy expression fills you with more terror than the mouthful of needle sharp teeth lurking behind Pennywise's painted lips, though his next words come close. 

"Let's play a game. Do you like to play games?" Once again Pennywise jerks your head up and down in imitation of a nod. "I know a good one. Easy, too. There's only one rule." He reaches for one of your hands, ripping it free of its death grip on your sheets and bringing it to his lips. His gaze never leaves your face. "If you scream, you lose."

Then he opens his mouth, unhinges his jaw, and stuffs your hand inside.

Later, you would swear that everything - your heart, your mind, the crawl of time - ground to a halt the moment those painted lips closed around your wrist. Your fingers tremble in the wet heat of Pennywise's mouth, gooseflesh pickling along your legs and arms as the sharp points of his teeth brush across your skin. The urge to yank your hand free of the clown's maw is overwhelming, but if you try he'll bite down and rip it free himself. Free of _you_. You can see the truth of that in the gleaming eyes peering down at you over the curve of his rounded nose. He's waiting for you to make a move. One wrong move.

Something long and wet curls around your fingers, over and under each digit like a thick, pulsing worm, and your head jerks hard against his grip, instinctual and automatic. The hand at your jaw tightens, Pennywise's eyes flaring a bright, brilliant yellow for a moment before fading into cool, triumphant blue.

" _You'll lose_." You gasp at the voice, _his_ voice, not coming from his mouth but echoing in your own head, tinged with a high-pitched giggle that sends cold fingers of dread running down the length of your spine. " _You always lose_."

For a moment your mind flounders. He's not just talking about _you_ anymore, you're suddenly sure of that, but whatever he meant no longer matters to your splintering mind as you feel sharp pinpricks along your captured hand.

Teeth. 

He's going to _bite_ you, you can see it now, _feel_ it, those powerful jaws will clamp down and rip your hand to shreds, your skin and blood and bone slipping down the clown's throat and disappearing into his stomach, he's going to _eat_ you - 

Suddenly you're tempted to ignore every rational thought in your head: you want to pull your hand free of that dank, dark wetness, to throw yourself to the floor and escape the suffocating bulk of the creature on top of you - because that's what he is, what _It_ is, a creature, a _monster_ \- and to run from your apartment and never look back.

But you can't. Because he'll follow you. He'll catch you. Some part of you, a part ingrained in the animal recesses of your brain - the same part that had rebelled so strongly against that strange light in the back of the clown's throat - knows that there is no escaping from this. 

The only thing you can do is play by the rules and hope that you survive.

_If you scream, you lose_.

So you don't.

It's easy. The desire is there, the _need_ is there, but the screams remain locked in your throat, clawing at your insides but never escaping. You can see the frustration mounting in the clown's eyes, but your silence endures, even as jagged teeth dig deeper into your flesh.

You suck in a breath as they prick your skin, not ripping or tearing - not yet - but showing you that they can. Blood trickles from the shallow wounds, hotter than the saliva already coating your skin, and you watch in a mingled state of terror and disgust as the clown's nostrils flare, his eyes awash with hunger as the taste fills his mouth. You can feel his tongue slipping along the bumps of your knuckles and the back of your hand, lapping the blood away.

Still you remain silent, and Pennywise's manic gaze soon turns shrewd. Calculating.

" _You're good at this game_." The voice echoes in your head again, though you can barely concentrate on the words as you watch the clown's mouth slowly peel away from your hand, his jaws splitting and blooming outward like a red flower. Free of his maw, your hand falls, wet and red and sticky to your bed, the skin turning cold and clammy in the air of your bedroom. Pennywise shoots you a nasty grin, and you can see rows of sharpened teeth winking through the elongated gaps of his wide smile. "But we can play again," he warbles thickly, his voice no longer confined to the depths of your mind, "and again, and again, until you're not."

You know it doesn't mean anything. You know that just because he's stopped for now it doesn't mean he'll leave you alone, doesn't mean you're _safe_ \- 

In the next instant, you're proven right.

"Just one more taste," he breathes, yellow swallowing his irises, and your hands curl around fistful of your bedsheets seconds before his head rears back - like a snake, you think hysterically, before his teeth clamp down onto your shoulder.

Agony bows your back off the bed, your mouth falling open in shocked, soundless pain. A single, thready rasp escapes your lips, but that's it, and then the room is swallowed by the scratch of your nails dragging at your sheets, the wet rasp of Pennywise's tongue lapping at your torn, bloody flesh, and the sucking rush of darkness closing in around you.

The slit of one golden eye looms in your periphery for a moment, fixed on your face, before the darkness swallows that, too.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the noise that startles you back into full awareness. You suck in a breath, straining your ears for more of it, unsure of its direction but knowing that you'd heard _something_ -
> 
> There.
> 
> It's low at first, a popping sound that reminds you of lips smacking or balloons bursting, but it soon grows louder, interspersed with harsh clicks and the slick squelch of something tearing. Something soft. Something wet. 
> 
> You cautiously rise up, taking pains to be silent as you move. The nightlight illuminates your room - the corners are empty, the closet door shut. You don't _see_ anything, but the noises continue, louder now, and - your blood turns to ice - peppered with low, rumbling growls. 
> 
> And all of it, all the noise, it's coming from below you. From under your bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so, so much to everyone who read the first chapter! it was truly amazing to me to receive such a positive response on something i was initially so nervous about posting, and now i'm even more excited about continuing it! seriously, you guys are the sweetest and i can't thank you all enough <3
> 
> this one took me a little longer than i'd like just because i want 18 things to happen and kept having to remind myself not to stuff them all in one chapter.

You wince at the bright fluorescence of the lights overhead, the ache in your skull compounded by the noises of other shoppers - the muffled din of voices, creaky carts, and fussy kids. A shopping basket hangs from your arm, half full with supplies for a simple dinner, though your stomach twists at the thought of eating anything. 

Twists at the thought of going _home_.

You'd lingered as long as you could at work, the last to venture outside the safety of the building, and you'd sat frozen in your car for at least half an hour afterwards until a passing security guard had rapped on your window and asked if anything was wrong.

You'd jumped at the sight of him, your body seizing in a paroxysm of fear, before you'd stammered out some excuse and left. You'd wound up in the grocery store parking lot entirely by accident, but it'd seemed as good a place as any to bide your time. 

You couldn't go home. Not yet.

Not when you knew what was waiting for you.

You'd woken up in a daze that morning, the whole of your body pulsing in dull waves of pain. It hadn't taken long for the events of the night before to crash over you in a sickening wave, and you'd jerked up in bed with a strangled gasp, nervously seeking out all the corners of your room for something - for _someone_.

There had been nothing. No grinning clown, no razor-toothed smile. You'd been alone.

The panic had eased once you were sure of your solitude. You had laughed shakily at yourself, thinking, _It was all a dream. A nightmare_. A terrifying one, to be sure, but that was it. You'd probably rolled around in the night and banged yourself up in the throes of it. People did that all the time, didn't they? Scratched or bruised themselves in the night?

A dream. It could have been, and you'd _believed_ that, until you'd reached up to touch your throbbing shoulder - you must have banged it against the wall - and your palm had met ripped fabric and a layer of dried, crusty skin. 

You'd jerked your head to look at it, your face draining of color at the swath of mottled skin and the ring of teeth marks standing out clear as day on your flesh. The indents were unmistakable - two rows of teeth, one curving up, the other down - surrounded by flakes of dried blood. The top front teeth had left marks noticeably larger than the rest.

A strange whistling sound had filled your ears at the damning sight of those marks; it had taken you a moment to realize that sound was coming from you - your breath rushing past your lips in short, sharp bursts, your head light and full of static, like it had been stuffed with cotton. You had pushed yourself from the bed and stumbled to the bathroom on legs that were shaky as a colt's, your skin clammy and stinking with fear, and collapsed on the floor of the tub without bothering to take off your clothes. You'd turned the knob on the faucet as far left as it would go and huddled in the hot water that gushed from the showerhead, scrubbing at your shoulder hard enough to risk reopening the wounds. It was only then that you'd noticed the array of pinpricks on the back of your hand and across your knuckles - the hand that had been stuffed inside the clown's mouth.

You'd keened into the hot, wet air, rubbing at the marks as if the strength of your fingers alone was enough to erase them from your sight. You had only succeeded in scrubbing the skin raw.

It had taken nearly half an hour to pull yourself out from under the spray, to toss your drenched pajamas in the trash - ignoring the dark stains on the ripped shoulder - and to dab antiseptic on the marks. You had balked at your reflection in the mirror above the sink - the drawn, tired pallor of your skin and the bruises standing out starkly along the curve of your jaw. 

You'd remembered it all then - the clench of the clown's fingers on your face, the maw of teeth, the heavy, suffocating weight of him, and that _smell_ \- and you remember it all now, staring in dazed silence at the rows of ice cream spread out before you. Your eyes catch on a colorful package labeled _Cotton Candy_ , and your mouth sours. 

That _smell_. The scent of buttery popcorn kernels and sugary sweetness mixed with old dust and fresh rot. It had clung to the clown like a second skin - to his strange costume, to his _breath_. And it had surrounded you, _he_ had surrounded you, suffocating you in that scent until you could barely breathe for it. Your stomach curdles at the memory. 

A mother and her child pass by behind you, and unbidden, you think, _There was a clown in my room last night_. If you told them, would they believe you? Or would the mother's lips twist in disgust as she pulled her child away, sure it was nothing but a poor joke?

You bump into a man in work boots and flannel as you exit the aisle and wince as the contact jostles your shoulder. You think about pulling the collar of your shirt aside and saying, _He bit me. Look! The bite marks are right there! It was **real**_. 

Instead all you mutter is a quiet, "Sorry," and scurry away to the pharmacy. Your head is pounding, a constant aching pulse at your temples, and you can't remember if you have any painkillers at home. 

You make a quick detour before you head for the registers, chewing on your bottom lip as you scan rows upon rows of light fixtures displayed down the length of the aisle. Your shoes squeak against the tile as you search the shelves, your eyes passing quickly over bulbs and lamp shades before you find what you're looking for.

Nightlights.

You don't waste time being picky; you just reach for the one that boasts the highest wattage, placing it almost reverently among your aspirin and sparse dinner ingredients before hurrying to the check-out line.

You feel a sharp stab of embarrassment as you watch the cashier bag your purchases, though the bored looking teen doesn't give you a second glance. _Look at you_ , you think, your face hot as you take your bags and shuffle out to your car. _You're acting like a scared little kid. Running from the dark_.

_No. Not the dark. A **monster**_.

You take the scenic route, but even so you're home within twenty minutes. You cut the ignition and stare at your apartment building with mounting dread, fingers numb around the steering wheel. If you go back in there, will _It_ be there, too? Waiting for you?

_You're good at this game_. Your skin crawls as you remember that voice, how easily its high-pitched, almost childish cadence had slid into something deeper when the clown grew angry. Grew _hungry_. _But we can play again, and again, and again, until you're not_. 

He would be there. You knew that as sure as you knew your own name. He wasn't finished with you.

You could leave. It's not a sudden thought; others just like it have ghosted through your mind at least half a dozen times today. There are a few basic motels in town, nicer hotels a little further out. You didn't have to go inside.

But there was a part of you that said you _did_. That you couldn't avoid this any more than you could forget what had happened the night before. 

And there was a part of you that wanted to know that it was _real_. 

You let out a shaky laugh, running your palms over your face. The marks should have been enough proof for you, but even with your shoulder still throbbing dully, even with the scratches along your hand and the bruises along your jaw that you hadn't quite been able to hide with concealer, there was still a shade of surrealism about the entire experience. No one at work or at the store had even given you a second glance. The day had been normal in every way. Predictable, even. 

And yet last night you had stared into a writhing gullet of needle-sharp teeth. Your hand had been _swallowed_ in it, your fingers coated with blood and saliva while the weight of the clown, the _scent_ of the clown, suffocated you.

And you had gone about your day as if nothing had changed. Maybe your actions had been coated with a heavy dose of fear and paranoia - your unplanned trip to the store and the purchases you'd made confirmed that well enough - but you'd still adhered to the routine that you followed nearly every day of your life.

It rattled you. You couldn't reconcile normality with the sheer _otherness_ of the clown. There was no rationalizing the terror of that creature. There was no rationalizing its existence at all. 

And you needed to know it was real. Needed it in a way that scared you, because it shouldn't matter one way or the other. You shouldn't have any desire to see it again. Him.

_Pennywise_.

You blow out a breath. You certainly couldn't stay out here all night, thinking about it. The sun was setting beyond the windshield, the sky a riotous blend of deep reds and purples blending into darker blues, and it was the thought of that encroaching darkness that finally got you moving.

Your apartment is silent. Empty. The itch you'd felt last night - that sense of being watched - is absent as you step inside. You dump your bags on the counter in the kitchen and immediately fish out two aspirin, popping them into your mouth and reaching into the fridge for water to wash them down with. You switch on every light in the kitchen and living room before you set to work on dinner, and soon the apartment is awash with the bubbling of sauce and the scent of garlic as you cobble together your meal. The entire scene is reminiscent of so many other nights you've spent in your apartment that you almost feel at ease within the predictability of the routine. The heavy silence and strange darkness from last night seems very far away, though you have to quickly avert you eyes whenever you catch a glimpse of the shadowed hallway leading to the open door of your bedroom.

As you scoop a helping of food into a bowl and put the leftovers away in the fridge, you think back to that morning, to the state of your bedroom and the suspicion that had nagged at you all day. 

You'd noticed it immediately after your shower. You'd gone to grab for the clothes you'd laid out the night before and caught it from the corner of your eye.

Your closet door. Open. 

Had you closed it the night before? You remember yanking on the lightswitch, remember slumping with relief as you'd realized it was empty, remember feeling silly, checking for monsters like a kid. 

Had you closed it afterward? You can't remember.

That's where he'd come from, you think. The closet. You don't know why you think that, only that it must be true. Hadn't you been checking for monsters? And hadn't a monster appeared in your room, just like that?

It was a child's logic, but that didn't make it untrue.

And it was a child's logic that had sent you searching for a nightlight, because if monsters really do climb out of closets, you needed light to ward them off. Didn't you? 

Could it really be that simple?

You finish dinner and clear away your dishes still grappling with that question, wishing you had more than just your own childish assumptions to go off of. You brush your teeth, you dress for bed, and you take the nightlight into your room no closer to answers than you were when you woke up that morning. 

The nightlight is a comforting weight in your hands. You remove it from its package, grabbing for the batteries you'd bought to go with it. You slide them into the case one by one, closing the hatch and turning the nightlight over. It's large oval shape reminds you of an egg, and as you flick it on, a soft sphere of light casting you in its glow, you imagine a creature growing inside. A bird, maybe. Strong enough to force its light into every corner of your room, strong enough even to force out the clown. 

It's a silly thought, but it comforts you nonetheless as you slip under the covers, turning on your side so you can keep the nightlight in your sight. Its glow washes the entirety of your room in light, powerful enough to soften the shadows in the corners but not so bright that it strains your eyes and will make it difficult to sleep. 

Not that you think you'll be able to. You're too wound up for that, your insides coiled tight as you lay there, listening to the hum of the ceiling fan and tracing your eyes over the curve of the nightlight, over and over again. You slip into a daze, picturing your imagined bird all curled up and cocooned in its glowing chamber, keeping you company while you wait to be confronted by the creature that had terrorized you in the night. 

Your eyes roll from the nightlight to the closet door just beyond the edge of your bed. You imagine him waiting in there, watching you through the slats in the door, though it's hard to picture the length of him encased in such a small space, hunched over amidst your clothes and spare blankets and all the random junk you can't bring yourself to throw away.

_All the smart monsters hide under the bed_ , you find yourself thinking. It's a strange thought, flitting in and out of your mind like a fish slipping silently through water. _I never checked there last night, did I? Maybe he didn't come from the closet at all_.

Your eyes grow heavy-lidded, sliding to half-mast as you watch the core of the nightlight burn softly in the darkness of your bedroom. Exhaustion pulls at your limbs despite the anxious fear swirling in your blood, but your anticipation - your surety that the clown will come - pushes you to shake off the lethargy plucking at your eyelids.

For a time you waver in that razor-thin margin between full wakefulness and dozing, your limbs relaxed but your mind alert, your body soft beneath your sheets but prepped for action, muscles tensing and releasing rhythmically. 

It's the noise that startles you back into full awareness. You suck in a breath, straining your ears for more of it, unsure of its direction but knowing that you'd heard _something_ -

There.

It's low at first, a popping sound that reminds you of lips smacking or balloons bursting, but it soon grows louder, interspersed with harsh clicks and the slick squelch of something tearing. Something soft. Something wet. 

You cautiously rise up, taking pains to be silent as you move. The nightlight illuminates your room - the corners are empty, the closet door shut. You don't _see_ anything, but the noises continue, louder now, and - your blood turns to ice - peppered with low, rumbling growls. 

And all of it, all the noise, it's coming from below you. From under your bed.

A hysterical laugh builds in your throat - it hadn't been the closet at all, oh no, and there was plenty of space under your bed, wasn't there? - but the noises below give way to the scrape of something sharp across your bed boards, and the laugh dies on your tongue. 

The scratch of nails across the metal frame prickles your skin, sends icy fingers raking down the length of your spine. Your teeth click together as you clench your jaw, sour saliva filling your mouth as a familiar smell drifts to your nose - sweet and sour, sugar and decay. 

"I know you're there," you rasp, swallowing convulsively as the scratching stops. The silence that follows terrifies you; you can hear your heartbeat accelerating, a rapid drumbeat in the cage of your chest as you wait, listening -

Arms burst over the edges of your bed, blackened claws emerging from split, dirty gloves, and your mouth opens to expel a scream of fear and alarm before you remember, you _remember_ -

_If you scream, you lose._

\- and your hands clamp down over your mouth, smothering the scream before it has a chance to escape.

Your bed shakes violently beneath you, the arms reaching, grabbing, three of them, four, five, rending tears in your sheets, scratching furrows into your mattress, searching for you.

You recoil from them, heart racing panic-fast, reaching back to wrap your fingers around the curves of your headboard. "S-Stop," you whisper, your voice a hoarse murmur. From under your bed, a high-pitched giggle answers your pathetic plea. "S-Stop!" you repeat, your voice firmer, louder, but still too weak. You wheeze as one of the hands - so many, there are so many hands, all reaching for you, all topped by gloves wreathed in ruffles and bells, ringing as they grope for you - grabs hold of your ankle, nails digging gouges into your flesh, and _yanks_.

You're pulled across the mattress like a puppet on a string, white-hot pain lancing up your leg, and then Pennywise is there, over you, bracketing you with his bulk, and this time you really do almost scream at the sight of him, because there's _blood_ smeared across his mouth and dripping down his chin, spattered across his forehead and staining the ruffles around his collar. When he smiles his teeth are caked with it, and you remember the noises under your bed. Wet, tearing noises. Crunching noises.

Eating noises.

You turn your face away from the grisly sight, your hands scrabbling at the sheets as you seek out the reassuring glow of your nightlight with desperate fervor. Pennywise watches you with unabashed delight, allowing you to scramble away an inch or two before he tightens his grip around your ankle and yanks you back again, laughing. You breathe hard through your nose, hiccuping at the pain, and seek out the blurry curves of the nightlight with wet eyes. 

"What's the matter?" Pennywise asks, leaning over you. You flinch away from his gore-streaked face, though of course you can't go far. Still, you refuse to turn your head away from the light. You're lost if you do. You know this. 

Nothing prepares you for the fingers pushing into your mouth, however, two of them groping over your tongue and pressing into the back of your throat until you gag. "Cat got your tongue?" the clown giggles, jerking your head until you're forced to face him again. The bitter taste of blood and dirt clings to his gloves, and you whimper in disgust and mortification as Pennywise wiggles his fingers, coating your tongue with more of that acidic taste.

His mouth stretches in a fiendish grin at your reaction, a noxious mixture of blood and drool spilling from his swollen bottom lip. "You want to scream," he continues, fitting his knees against your hips as he'd done last night. Your pulse pounds in your ears at the thick, cloying scent of him, the weight of him, the sensation of being swallowed whole once again. "I can smell it. I can _hear_ it." His free hand ghosts over your hip, one long finger pressing into the meat of your lower belly. "It's riiiiight here." A second finger joins the first, spiderwalking up the length of your torso until they land on your chest, prodding the swath of skin over your heart. "And right here." 

The smile slips from his face as his fingers _tip-tip-tap_ along your collarbone, his lips growing slack as his fingertips settle into the dip at the base of your throat. Instinct freezes your limbs as Pennywise's stare grows vacant and blank, gold sparking in the depths of his eyes. "And here," he murmurs, and your heartbeat stutters. The manic humor has bled from his voice, replaced by a hoarse, hungry growl, and your skin prickles with cold sweat as his eyes trace a slow path from your throat to your face. 

"It's here, too," he rumbles, lips parting to reveal sharpened teeth bursting from wet, red gums. You grunt as the fingers stuffed into your mouth curl against your tongue; you gag as they prod at the back of your throat. "Should I go in and tear it out?" His fingers press hard against the back of your throat, and even amidst your gagging, you recognize the sharp scratch of his nails against your sensitive skin. 

You shake your head, tears spilling hot and fast from your eyes as you choke. You suck air in desperately through your nose, your throat clogged by blood and grit and dirty silk, and garble a strangled, unintelligible plea around the clown's fingers. 

"No?" Pennywise hums, his blood-splattered face twisting into an exaggerated expression of disappointment. Drool bubbles on his bottom lip, dripping down his chin to mix with the rest of the mess on his collar. You can feel saliva leaking from the stretched out corners of your own mouth, and your stomach cramps with nausea. "You're making this game so much more difficult than it has to be. You know you won't win." He pokes at your collarbone, his voice taking on a sing-song tone. "You should just give - it - up." 

You shake your head again, breathing hard through your nose as you roll your eyes away from the clown's face. You can't seek out the nightlight, not with his fingers stuffed in your mouth and holding your head in place, but you can still see its light. Your room is drenched in it, pale and soft and blue, and it strikes you as obscene that this _thing_ , this monster, should be touched by it at all. Yet he's still there, blood-soaked and relishing in your pain and your panic. Relishing in your _fear_. He's no more affected by the light than any other flesh and blood intruder would be. Why did you think it would _work_?

The sharp rake of Pennywise's voice _tsk, tsk, tsk_ -ing at you draws your attention back to his face, but he's no longer looking at you. No, his amber gaze has shifted to a point beyond you, and as you crane your neck backward, the fingers in your mouth abruptly yank themselves free. You cough and sputter as you suck in air, face wet with tears and saliva, but you're barely given a moment to recover before the clown's wet fingers grip your chin and force your head back, until you're faced with an upside down view of your nightlight.

You suck in a startled breath so quickly that it lodges in your throat and nearly sends you into another coughing fit. A hairline fracture has appeared near the top of the nightlight; it stretches as you watch, jagged lines creating a crack in the plastic, as though something inside were attempting to break free.

You think of your bird, that little flight of fancy that had comforted you just a few short hours ago, and something like hope wells in your chest before you can smother it.

Pennywise laughs, the bells on his costume jingling as his body shakes, and your flicker of hope disintegrates in a rush of cold, sour fear as something finally breaks free of your nightlight.

Blood.

It bubbles up from the crack in the top, dark and thick and spilling in globs over the curves of the nightlight, covering it in a syrupy red goop. The light doesn't die, it _changes_ , soft blue swallowed up by dark red until you, your room, and Pennywise are bathed in it. 

The fingers on your chin jerk your head away from the grisly mess your nightlight has become, and your breath catches at the horrifying visage peering down at you. The red light shadows the clown's nose and eyes in swaths of black and darkens the white of his face until it's no longer a grinning jester hovering over you but a great red skull, mouth stretching wide to swallow you up.

It still has the same voice, though, rough and high-pitched and coated in that same manic joy. "You're all the same, clinging to silly beliefs." He presses his face into yours, fills your vision with his painted lips and cold blue eyes. "But you're too old, far too old, for belief to do you any good, and you'll float just as easy as everybody else." 

You pull against his grip, your body struggling in vain beneath his. "L-leave me alone," you rasp, cursing the shakiness of your voice, hating the fear you can hear in it. 

Pennywise curves his free hand around your shoulder - the shoulder his teeth had sunk into the night before - and squeezes, his lips curling at your hiss of pain. "You're good," he breathes, one sharp nail dragging at the fabric over your shoulder. Saliva bubbles on his lips and your stomach rebels as you realize - he's not talking about the game any more, he's talking about your _taste_. "But you can be better. Just a little more, until you're _ripe_." His lips smack on the last word, and you're reminded of those noises under your bed - the ripping, the tearing, the wet squelch of soft muscle pulled from bone. "We'll keep playing, until you're ready to _lose_." His lips stretch into a hungry smile, dried flakes of blood breaking free of his red mouth to rain down on your wet face. "And then I'll take my prize. Quick and easy. Just like falling asleep. Just - like - _that_ \- "

He snaps his fingers, and you jerk as his weight, his scent, and the red light all disappear in a pop of displaced air. You're left in a heap on your torn sheets, shivering and alone in the glow of your nightlight - your unbroken nightlight, you confirm with a twist of your head, though you can no longer find any comfort in its pale, soft glow. You toss yourself off of your bed without a backwards glance at it. Your foot nearly crumples under you, marred with long, bloody scratches along the top, but you ignore its fresh, stinging pain in favor of fleeing from your room.

You don't sleep. You spend the rest of the night in a ball on the bathroom floor, your overheated, clammy face pressed to the cool tiles and your phone a dead weight beside you. You had dialed and hung up the phone a dozen times - friends, family, the police, all had been debated and discarded until you had crumpled in defeat and given up the idea of contacting anyone entirely. Who would believe you? Who _could_ believe you?

Your alarm chirps at seven o'clock and you paw blindly at your phone until it stops, dragging yourself into the shower and washing off the sweat and grime and blood coating your skin with mechanical movements. You dress with one eye trained on your nightlight, dim and entirely normal looking in the pale light of day. You don't even notice that you're pulling more clothes than you need out of the closet until you have a pile of it on the bed; you stuff it all into a duffel bag and slam your bedroom door shut before you leave.

You breathe easier on the road; the further you get from your apartment, the easier it is to drag air into your lungs. You're not safe there, not anymore, maybe not ever again, but out here, in the pale morning sunlight and the soft autumnal breeze, you don't have to worry about the clown. You don't even have to _think_ about it.

You'll be the first into work today, but you don't care. You'll stay late again, and then you'll go into town and rent a room. You won't even go home. You'll catch up on sleep and then... and then you'll figure out the rest later. 

It's not much of a plan, but it's enough to keep you going. It's enough to get you out of the car when you make it to work twenty minutes later, nodding a greeting to the security guard as he passes you on the way to the parking lot. 

It's _enough_ , that is, until you near the front door, and everything - the packed bag in your car, the possibility of sleep, the possibility of _anything_ \- scatters at your feet like so many dead leaves.

There, swaying gently in the wind, is a red balloon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you guys are interested, i started a [sideblog](https://theawfuledges.tumblr.com/) where i can post snippets/news about this fic (and also indulge in my sudden clown obsession without overloading my main blog, haha). i'd love to try my hand at shorter pieces too, so if you have any prompts/requests, feel free to head on over and submit some! 
> 
> see you for chapter three!


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